


We've Come Full Circle (Look How Far We've Come)

by Krasimer



Series: Do Not Go Gentle [18]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Aftermath, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Humanstuck, M/M, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, after the game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-07
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-04-25 06:03:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 18,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4949473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krasimer/pseuds/Krasimer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Death is not the end. Death can never be the end. Death is the road."<br/>                                           --Sri Chinmoy</p><p>OR</p><p>Our story began with the children of these people, did you honestly think that was where it ended?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Nitram -- Olin

The first time you notice Xochitl acting strange, he is fifteen and standing on the edge of a precipice: adulthood is starting to beckon him closer, childhood is saying goodbye, and he is in the throes of being a teenager.

You wish you could help him along, wish you could do anything besides sitting to one side dumbly and watching. 

But there are some things that must be done alone, and he seems to recognize this when he denies your offer of help with whatever seems to be bothering him. His brother is rebuffed as well, and the youngest of the Ochoa family is growing a little distant. Hopefully, once the hormones have settled, everything will be alright between the two of them. 

(Your dreams are filled with worry.)

You have a feeling that Citlali would be begging you to help his brother if anything else was different, the worry that clings to him like a second skin when it comes to the younger makes you proud in a way. 

Your name is Cuauhtemoc Olin, and your boys are everything you have left.

(They say that the storm washes away all but the strongest foundation. You and your sons have weathered many storms.)

When both of them start acting strange in the same way, you worry less and more at the same time. On the one hand, Xochitl and Citlali have one another, and they've always been good about staying out of trouble. They act as barriers for the other, walls to be contained within, and you worry that that containment will hurt them if they stay within for too long. 

On the other hand, they stop speaking to you for days at a time.

It makes your heart somewhat sick, knowing that they won't talk to you about whatever is happening. They are your children, you raised them to be open and freely communicative, and this worries you all the more.

And then, they corner you and ask, voices pleading and eyes wide as if they were still small, "What do you remember about trolls?"

As if it had simply been waiting to be acknowledged, the memories dredge themselves up and call out to you.

"Well," you begin, "That depends on what you remember of them."

They smile at you.


	2. Vantas -- Burakgazi

When your memories return to you for the first time, everything is agony and terror and hatred.

It seems as if you have traded in one life of attempting to survive in the worst of conditions for another, this one somehow even more dangerous than the last. There is your son, chained to a wall next to you, his eyes shut as he presses his forehead into his knees. Tears have long since stopped coming for either of you when the men who keep you here arrive.

You shuffle around as quietly as you can manage and slip one of your now-worryingly-thin wrists further through the cuff that clasps it until you can hold Kadri's hand, murmuring words of encouragement.

His eyes are wide when he looks up at you, a terrifying sort of blankness behind them, and it is all you can do not to start screaming at your captors on his behalf. He is your son, he is your child, and he is exactly the sort you fought to save when you were known by a different name. Once upon a time, you were the Signless, the Sufferer as you were known to some, and you had the weight of a revolution on your shoulders.

To be angry and locked away in a dusty room somewhere, your tattered black clothing splattered with blood that your son cannot see...

The anger that was your dying curse simmers beneath your skin and it is only the shivers that wrack through Kadri's body that bring you back to the present. Pulling him closer and tucking his head under your chin, arms awkwardly curled around him in a protective manner, you stare out the hole in the door.

There was once someone who fought to save you, who abandoned all of his beliefs to try and help you.

You think of the troll you now remember, the size and strength of him, and you let your eyes slip closed, sending out a silent prayer that someday he will find out what happened to you if you die here. A prayer goes out for your other son as well, fear dragging at your throat as you think about how old he was when you were taken from your home. 

Technically an adult but still so young to be alone.

If nothing else, Demetria would not allow for his loneliness to be all consuming, and you must be thankful for small favors.

The Dolorosa once vowed to follow you, to help you in whatever way she could, and you are inordinately glad that she seems to be keeping to her word. 

 

~

 

Time passes like this: You wake up, you reassure your son, sometimes you get dragged out of the room, and nothing of what they do to you is as hard to bear as what was done to you in another lifetime.

 

~

 

And then one day, the schedule changes.

The man with the ongoing assignment to bring you food and water is knocked unconscious just inside the door of your room. Kadri squeaks in fear, his eyes wide as saucers as he looks up at the man responsible. For a moment, the fear grips you as well, but then you see the color of his eyes. 

His eyes are awfully, familiarly, purple.

It takes you a moment, but you sit back and watch him as he approaches slowly, pulling a phone out with one hand even as he kneels next to you. He sends off a quick text, and then his attention is entirely on you. One hand is on your shoulder, the shape of his disbelieving smile distorted by the scars on his face. 

You would know him anywhere.

As the Signless, you only got a few weeks to know him, to understand him and his way of life, and in the end your death was called for because of several factors. If you remember correctly, it was also meant to be a punishment for him, for how he had strayed from his loyalty to his Empress. From the look in his eyes, the reserved excitement and worry, he must remember as well.

"Highblood." you whisper as you look up at him.

His hand shakes as he brings it from your shoulder to your face, sharp nails dancing over your skin. "Signless." he rumbles. As if he isn't even aware of how it came to be there, he stares at his hand, eyes shifting from it to you.

"It's alright." you whisper. "This is okay."

Footsteps echo behind him and he turns to look over his shoulder, smiles when he sees what looks like a younger version of him. "They've become my sons." he whispers to you, jerking his chin towards Kadri. "What of yours?"

"The story is the same, though I suspect that the details are changed." you smile as he pulls out a cloth-wrapped bundle from his pocket, exposing sharp metal tools and selecting a few. He holds them up, motions for you to offer him your wrists, then sets about opening the locks as quickly as he can. On your other side, the younger version of him is doing the same for Kadri, who looks to be feeling the same relief as you.

Once your son is free, he throws himself in the other's arms, clutching him close.

"Kadri?" you pause when you hear the click that is evidence of your new freedom. "Mind explaining a few things?"

He looks at you, eyes wide and hands clutching in the cloth of the young man's shirt. "It's going to sound insane." he warns, and you realize that your son holds many of the same memories that you do, merely a few steps behind. "There was this game, and we played it, and my name was Kankri and his name was Kurloz, and this is so very important."

You look at the younger version of the Highblood, then curl a hand within the much larger of the original version. "I understand that as easily as breathing." you tell him, watch as his eyes pinpoint the connection between the two of you. "Kurloz, if you would not mind getting my son out of here safely? I suspect he is more protected in your arms than anywhere else, if you are anything like your father." 

A silence falls as he nods and carries Kadri- Kankri -off and away, out of the room.

It's broken when the Highblood seems to go limp next to you, his hand still grasping your own. "Please," he whispers, a high note of pain and worry in his voice. "Please tell me that you are alright."

"I am going to have trouble standing on my own." you admit, holding both of your hands out to him again. "And I was hoping for some help."

He nods immediately, takes you in his arms without question, without hesitance, then stands and makes his way out of the room. "Every member of this gang that was within this building is either in police custody or..." he trails off, the rumble of his voice moving through his chest and pressing against you.

The smell of smoke wafts through the building, and you rearrange in his hold so that you can see what is happening. He comes to a stop in a parking lot, next to a truck with mud on the front of it, and now you can see clouds of smoke rising into the sky.

On the ground several feet away is a young man with white hair and skin, and he glares up at you as you raise an eyebrow at him. At the edge of your vision stand two women, both of them solemn and focused entirely on the building. The one with blue hair turns to look at you for a moment, then smiles and waves. 

You wave back as your son and Kurloz come rushing out of the building, followed by two more young men.

"Who-"

"They are the sons of the Psiioniic and Dualscar," the Highblood explains before you can even finish asking your question. "We all seem to have been given another chance with the ending of the game our children played. There are others, as well, others who were not a part of our lives, who were not trolls."

He takes a deep breath, watches the Psiioniic's child stumble once, twice, before he latches onto Dualscar's child, arms twined with his in a manner that says he will not be letting go anytime soon.

They stop in front of you and Dualscar's child looks up at you with wide eyes. "I'm gonna guess that you're related to Kar, right?" he asks, the same stress on his words that you remember from having met Dualscar twice. "You look kind of exactly like him, so if you say you're not, my brain might explode."

"Hith name ith Kivanc in thith life." Psiioniic's child has the same lisp, poor boy.

"And yes, he is my son," you add. "Are you fathers around anywhere? I suspect there is need of a meeting of the group of us."

"My dad ith probably worried thick right now, but he'th probably at work. I'm technically out on my own, have been for yearth." he swallows his next word in a yawn, leaning against the other for support. "ED'th dad went thailing thomewhere, hathn't come back yet."

'ED' glares at a spot on the ground, an arm wrapping around the slim waist of his extra weight. "Sol's dad is a lot nicer than mine is." he mutters. "Actually wworries about his kid, makes sure he gets food and stuff."

"And when I meet yourth, I'm gonna yell." 'Sol' warns.

"Good."

You get the impression that 'ED' would be wiggling his fins in annoyance if he were still a troll. "What are you names, if I may ask?"

"...That's just fuckin' wweird, you sound and look like Kar but you're a lot less-" he wrinkles his nose. "Loud." a shake of his head follows and he sighs. "I'm Erik, you don't evver call me by my first name."

"Thamuel Choi. Laugh if you want, my name ith thomething I can't even thay right." 

The deep rumble of the Highblood's voice makes you shiver: You had almost forgotten that he was holding you. "Aitor Ochoa. My son is Carles." 

"Well." you smile, leaning in closer to him. "I say we should all head home."

Carles's face goes a little pale and he signs something at his father, a frantic sort of worry in his eyes. Aitor responds with more of the same, using his voice. "Call him on the way home,"

He's interrupted by the shriek of a siren and he grins the same grin that has always sent shivers down your spine. "Suppose we should get out of here before we're identified." he growls out as he holds you closer and turns to open the truck. "Let's go."

Plopping you down on the front seat next to him, he turns back to the young descendants of those you once knew. 

"Unless you want to stay here?"

Erik practically sweeps Samuel off his feet in his hurry to get into the car.


	3. Ampora -- Erikson

The ceremony for your wife was short, a simple send off that she would have approved of.

You watch as the shore shrinks into the distance, a buzzing in your mind that reminds you of a florescent light going dead, flicking into darkness. The feeling in your chest is hollow, and while you can't bring yourself to have loved her any more than you did, you can mourn her as long as you wish.

Your name is Orphanus Erikson, and you have two sons waiting for you to return to shore in a different part of the world, but you can't bring yourself to want to go back to land just yet.

Heart heavy and ready to burst, you send off a letter, reassuring your boys that you will come home eventually.

(You won't know until much later, but they never get any of the letters you sent.)

The sting of the cold sea air hits your nose as you take off once more.

(You spend a decade running away.)

(It never helps.)

 

~

 

Sea ports flash by in the periphery of your attention, barely recognized by you and you by them until one day you find yourself somewhere in Europe.

(Your crew remembers what day it is, even if you've done your best to forget that calenders exist.

She always did love Europe.)

 

~

 

Every time you pull into a port, you send off another letter to your sons. The weeks become marked by how many sheets of paper are missing from the container on your desk.

(Once or twice a month, you find yourself writing them several letters about how much you miss them. Erik must be nearly grown by now, and Carl is of drinking age.)

(You promised him once that you'd take him out for his first legal drink if he didn't mess up too much in the years before it.)

(Erik was fourteen and Carl was eighteen: They'd hugged both you and your wife and thinking about it too much makes your hand reach for a bottle off to one side of your desk.)

 

~

 

Six years out at sea, over two hundred letters home, and you land somewhere in Australia.

The letter you send home from here is a package, filled with candy and toys that you vaguely remember they might like. You send it off with a letter about how sorry you are for not being there for them, how much you miss their mother and how much they must miss her too.

You never hear back, which is expected at this point.

(The package sat in the back of a postal building for years, a lazy office worker having hated being woken up to deal with it.)

 

~

 

Eight years at sea, both of your sons legally adults and able to drink, you have to hope that they're okay. You left them in charge of the company, one of your friends in charge of making sure that they're doing okay for money.

(You won't know until you go home, but he cut them off the moment you left, leaving them to fend for themselves.)

(You recruit a couple of old friends and bring him up on charges.)

(If you had your way, he would never see sunlight again for what he did to your boys.)

 

~

 

Nine years at sea begins to feel too long, but you still need to wander just a little bit more. Your wife always wanted to see the world, and the original plan had been to take your kids with you. Alli had wanted to see if it would be easier on them to stay home during the school year, retrieved during the summer. 

(She had planned it out.)

(The reactions from the school had both of you nearly convinced to just pull them out and take them with you anyways, because the pompous ass of a principal had demanded that they stay in school for the 'sake of their education'.

Idiot had left his door open as you left. You'd heard his panic about your donations.)

 

~

 

Ten years sees you finally sailing home. 

When you get back into cell range, you call up an old friend, hoping that the number hasn't changed.

(The gruff and angry answer on the other end is a relief.)

"Aitor?" you say when he finishes snarling at you for waking him up. "Do you knowv vwhere my sons are?"

(Home is an empty building in front of you, and it makes everything feel wrong.)

There's a pause and then he sighs. You remember what he looks like when he makes that sound. He draws himself up and sets himself straight, jaw clenched as he thinks about something and looks menacing. "I do, yes." he yawns and the noise is translated as static down the line. "From what I've heard from them, you haven't been in contact in a decade, Orphanus."

"...I sent letters home." you frown, feeling an anger stirring in your own chest. Nothing about this is adding up, where the hell are your children?

When you ask that, he pauses again, the sound of flipping pages coming across the call. "From what I see on the calender, they're at their boyfriends' house. They're both dating someone, and it might just be better if you wait where you are, I can be there in less than an hour."

"Alright." you swallow nervously, trying to douse the worry in the pit of your stomach. "Vwhat do you mean, vwhat you see on the calender?"

"They had a dinner with the father of their partners last night." Aitor chuckles. "They're dating a set of twins."  
That draws a laugh from you and you pull your keys out to open the door of your house. "I vwill see you vwhen you get here." you frown at how much dust is on everything. "Please hurry."

You hang up and wander further inside, nearly tripping over a pile of letters that sits on the floor. Honestly, you're surprised that you were even able to get inside with how many there are, most of them bearing your own handwriting. Dates and addresses from all over the world stare back at you, and you feel your heart clench in your chest. Kneeling down, you gather the ones you wrote together, piling them up so that you can look over them.

"I had heard that you were back in town," comes a voice from behind you and you know that voice well. "I guess I should have expected you to come here, but I kind of wish that you had come to see me first."

Your friend, a man named Jeremiah Keyes, is standing in the doorframe. His arms are crossed over his chest and one eyebrow is raised, but he looks unhappy about something. 

"Can you tell me vwhy it looks like my sons hawven't liwved here for a long time?" You ask, already knowing most of the answer. 

(You're missing a few of the pieces.)

Jeremiah purses his lips, mulls over the question for a moment, then sighs. "You've been out of town for a long time, Orph." his hands go to his pockets, tucking in neatly.

This feels like a trap, and you brace yourself for an attack. You've carried a knife since you were younger, you don't relish the feeling of being an animal backed into a corner. "C'mon, Jeremiah," you add in as a gamble, your brow furrowing as he stays exactly where he is. "You knewv I vwas coming back."

"Did I?" he laughs, low and eerie. "Because I would have thought your wife dying would have kept you away for longer."  
You grimace, standing up slowly and reaching one hand into the pocket your knife is in. "Only news of that is in the letters I sent-" you glance down, frown as you realize that some of them are actually opened. "You've been reading the mail that comes here."

"Got it in one." he sneers.

His hand goes deeper into his pocket and comes out with a small pistol, a shot flying through the air before you really have time to react. 

(Luckily Jeremiah is a crap shot.)

It nicks your forehead and you drop to avoid another, holding still until he comes closer. When you see the toe of his shoe come into view, you lash out with your blade, pinning his foot to the ground. 

His howl makes you grin and you push yourself off the ground, slamming the palm of your hand into his face and forcing him back, even as he stays in one place. "Vwhat the fuck did you do to my fuckin' kids, Jeremiah?" you can feel the snarl in your voice and you don't care. There's blood in the air, some of it yours, and it's been so long since you felt this way, this anger over someone you were supposed to protect. "Vwhy the fuck ain't they here?"

Jeremiah's eyes are wide in fear, blood gushing from the very likely broken nose you gave him. "I-"

"I'm just gonna guess that you did somethin' stupid." you breathe the words next to his ear, one hand on his chest as you pin him to the ground. "Because my sons knowv better than to leawve the house empty. They vwouldn't hawve left if they'd had a choice."

A bit more pain surges through your head as he manages to bring the pistol up and slam it into your forehead.

As you rear back, he tries to free his foot, but you buried the knife too deep for that to happen. Cradling your bloody forehead, you move forward and jam your free elbow into the back of his neck. When he curses you for that, you wrap your arm around his neck, holding tight until he falls unconscious.

With that done, you breathe slowly again, trying to calm the racing of your heart. 

According to the clock on your phone, you still have anywhere from twenty to forty minutes until Aitor arrives, so you stand up and make your way into the kitchen, grabbing one of the cloth bags that your wife had insisted you keep in the house.

You gather your letters into it, leafing through them slowly.

"You look terrifying." comes a new voice by the door. "There's blood on your face and neck, an unconscious man on the floor, and a knife stuck in his foot." Aitor kneels down next to you, one hand going to your shoulder. "What happened?"

"He forced my children out of their home, I suspect." you swallow, fingers tracing up to the two wounds on your head. "I knowv he read the letters I sent them. He knewv about the death of my vwife, and that vwas one of the first ones I sent." you tense up as someone walks around the two of you, kneels near Jeremiah. "Aitor, he must hawve done this to them early on, vwhich means they'wve spent so long-"

"They grew up in an apartment that Carl was renting." comes the voice of the third person. He looks at you, lugging a small container you remember Alli insisting on keeping in several places around the house. He kneels next to you and smiles. "My name is Kerim Burakgazi, I'm a..." he trails off, looking at Aitor, who shrugs and nods. "I was going to say friend of Aitor's, but, well." he smiles, cheeks a little pinker than before as he pulls out a roll of gauze and some cotton pads. 

"Aitor's finally dating again." you fill in the blank he's left and smile. "Good."

Jeremiah shifts behind them and Aitor crosses towards him, pinning him down with a foot. One hand pulls out his service weapon, the other pulls out his badge. "I'm afraid that you're not only trespassing, but you've hurt a friend of mine."

Pulling your attention back by running a swab of something over your skin and making you wince, Kerim apologizes quietly. "We'll get your sons back to you, I promise." he turns to one side. "I don't know how to stitch these up, but I can bandage them."

"That's fine." you answer quietly. "Are they safe vwhere they are?"

"Yes."

"Good." you turn to Aitor. "Is Nekane Marino's number still the same as it vwas?"

"It is, yeah." he glances at you, still posed as a threat over Jeremiah. "Her youngest is also practicing now as well, so you can have both of them representing you." he grins when Jeremiah makes a noise that's full of fear. "The Marino's never lose." he hisses at the smaller man. "And I suspect that you've done enough for your life to effectively end right here and now."

The next sound Jeremiah makes is a small bit of balm on the ache in your heart.

 

Aitor called the local police before letting you out of your house, made you wait on the porch while he had Jeremiah in handcuffs, had you give your statement while he menaced the man into the back of a squad car.

And now the drive to another part of town makes you feel ready to be sick. 

You're sitting in the backseat, the bag of letters in your lap, and the scenery passes by in a blur of colors that you don't really want to focus on. It's only when Kerim turns to speak to you that you snap back into reality. "Are you alright? Is your head hurting more than it should be?"

"I'm fine." you answer softly, reflexively. 

He waits for a moment, an eyebrow raised, and it stirs something in your memory. Aitor slows the car down, creeping along until he rolls into a parking spot. Turning the car off but not getting out, he turns to stare at you as well. "Orphanus?"

"Vwhat if they don't vwant anything to do with me, ewven after I've explained? Vwhat if they don't giwve me the chance to explain?" you pause, frowning. "Vwhat about the father of the tvwins? How close is he to my boys, did he help raise them? Vwhat if he doesn't vwant me anywhere near them?"

Kerim's eyebrows are both raised now, and he chokes down a small bit of laughter. "You'll never know if you don't go inside and talk to them."

The door of the small house beckons, and you have never been called a coward.

(Not to your face, anyways.)

Taking a deep breath, you clamber out of the car, clutching tightly to the bag of letters and letting your stomach settle before moving any further. It's a two story house in the suburbs, the outside painted a soft yellow color and surrounded by plants, most of which look useful as well as beautiful. 

Most of them have bees flying around them.

The door is a darker color, a honeyed sort of brown, and you choose to knock on it instead of ringing the doorbell. Footsteps inside give you a little more time to examine what's happening around the front of the house, a small porch jutting out and-

And then then there's a face nearly on the same level as yours, maybe a few inches taller, and the memories that have been missing finally come back to you.

It takes your breath away to realize who it is you're staring at, and you can feel the tears welling up in your eyes as you look at him. He's still identifiable, even as a human, and you are so glad that you don't know what he looks like when he's afraid in this lifetime. "H-Hello," you manage to stutter out, unsure of what to say next. "My name is Orphanus, I vwas told that both my sons are here." You can only hope that he recognizes the name, that he knows who you are and more importantly who you were.

Dark eyes blink once, then twice, a small smile spreading across his lips as he takes your hand. "Haneul Choi." he introduces himself, smile shifting into a smirk as he looks at you, an eyebrow quirking upwards in a way that you remember so well. "But maybe calling me the Pthiioniic would be eathier."

Heart in your throat, you press forward, pause for him to be able to push you away, then clutch tightly at his back, hands curled up and around his shoulders. Your face is not so much pressed into his neck as it is jammed into place, but he doesn't seem to mind. "Psii." you hiss the nickname out, tears running freely down your cheeks as you let the scent of him curl into your system. 

"Dualscar." he turns his head so that he can lay a kiss on your cheek, something that he had only ever done mockingly before, no time for true affection in a war that cannot be won. "I wath wondering when you would thhow up again."

"Dad?"

You feel more than see him look over his shoulder, his hand coming up to play with your hair. "Matthew, could you go get your boyfriend and hith brother?"

The younger Choi must nod or something because he's running off again and the Psiioniic is pulling you closer, both of his hands in your hair as he looks out the door. "Who brought you here? I didn't think you knew where I lived." he settles you into a chair near the door and kneels in front of you, hands sliding down to your knees.

"An old friend of mine, vwho I svwear must be someone I knew before." you swallow your nerves and manage to smile at him. "You're alright."

"Now I am." he nods, allows your hand to rest on his jaw. "I wathn't alright when you latht thaw me, and when I died I died bloody. Helmthman of Her thhip, died ath part of it." he turns to look at the doorway into the rest of the house when four sets of footsteps approach. You look up as well, fighting the urge to rush over and hold both of your boys to you.

"Carl, Erik." you greet when they stare at you.

Carl's upper lip pulls back into a sneer and you can't help but smile at that, pulling the bag of letters back into your lap. "You shouldn't be here." he hisses, hand entwined with Matthew's, putting himself in front of his brother as if to defend him.

Ever the one to notice more details, Erik peers around his brother's shoulder and frowns. "Wwhat's in the bag?"

"Letters that I sent ewvery vweek for the last ten years." you manage to say through the rush of anger at what has been done to them. "They vwere left at the house and the man responsible has been taken into custody and if I have my vway, there vwill be little dignity or sanity left for him in this vworld." you stand up slowly, stepping around Haneul and stopping just short of your children. "The letters detail vwhat was happening, vwhat changed, the reason I did not return. I've also found out that he cut the two of you out entirely vwhen I left," your fist is clenched so tightly that you suspect your knuckles are white. "And that vwas not vwhat vwas meant to happen."

You offer forward the bag, watching as Erik reaches out to take it and starts sifting through the contents.

"...Vwho vwas responsible for us then?" Carl asks quietly, still tensed, ready to run if he needs to. "Because you newver came back. Ten years since vwe last sawv you and nowv you're just gonna act like it doesn't fuckin' matter?"

"None of vwhat happened vwas supposed to happen." you start slowly, trying to find the right words to explain yourself. "You remember Jeremiah Keyes? He vwas supposed to ensure that an amount of money each month vwent to you tvwo and another amount vwent into an account for college for the both of you." you can feel the anger rising again, both of your hands free to clench up. 

It's funny, but this might be the moment where you and Carl look the most like each other that you ever have.

Erik nudges against his brother's arm, holding out one of the first letters you ever sent. "Carl, look at this one." there's tears in his eyes as he bites the inside of his lip. "Just read it," his words are shakey and he looks about ready to break down. Carl takes it from him, lets go of his boyfriend's hand, watches closely until the slimmer male sits down and Erik settles his boyfriend in next to him-

(You didn't notice the cane before, but now you do and you wonder what happened.)

-before he pulls the sheet of paper out of the envelope and starts reading it slowly. You watch the moment he reaches the most important part of this letter, recognized by you now as the first you ever sent off. His cheeks go pale, his eyes go wide, and there's a fresh version of the pain that still lingers in your chest. When he looks up at you finally, his body is still pulled tense, but he nods. "So mom-"

"Yes." you answer before he can ask the whole question. "In her sleep. I don't think there was much pain, at the end. We were only a month into the journey."

As if waiting for that, Erik launches himself out of his seat and wraps his arms around you, his face pressed into your chest. He isn't a child anymore, the gangly awkwardness of his teenage shape that you only faintly remember completely gone. He's twenty-three, almost twenty-four, but he clings to you like he's seven once more.

Carl waits a few seconds longer before he rushes forward as well, tucking himself around his brother and holding just as tightly. "Dad." he hisses the word out, voice cracking on the one syllable of it.

You hold them both to you and feel everything fall back into place. 

(In a while, you'll tell them about the memories, about watching them grow as trolls and as boys, and there will be a large amount of relief when they tell you that they remember as well. Matthew and Samuel were once Mituna and Sollux, they'll inform you, and they shared the same powers as their father.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay for implied alcoholism on Dualscar's part?
> 
> This might actually be my favorite of these pieces so far.


	4. Peixes -- Maxwell

Remembering brings weakness.

In the middle of a business meeting, explaining some detail as to why some unimportant thing cannot be done without compromising quality, a headache knocks you down. Your words stutter off, mid-sentence, and you gape for a few seconds as you try to get them back. They don't come, your hands are flickering between skin colored and grey, and you are left to apologize to your assembled company.

Your associate, a man named Zachariah Fields, clears his throat and stands from his chair. "Well," he says, a hint of a sneer in his voice as he puts a hand on your back. "What I believe this means is, meeting adjourned." 

The pencil pushers and the number crunchers and all sorts of other cliches about office workers file out of the room, not a one of them daring to mutter amongst themselves. You swallow, blinking rapidly as the room starts to swim, the ache in your temple growing worse as you try to pin down what is happening. 

"Misses Maxwell, if you could pay attention." Fields says, disdain clear.

(When you'd begun working for the company you'd been a young mother of two, recently widowed after the death of your military husband. He has never forgiven you for this, or for how far you've risen in the ranks of the company.)

"Sorry," you find yourself apologizing, shaking your head and swallowing to try and clear your throat. Your hands go tight on the pointer you're still holding, a gift from your oldest daughter for a christmas when you still didn't have much money. "I don't know what even came over me, I just-"

Fields rolls his eyes. "Just don't let it happen again."

(You'd gotten promoted over him: If you hadn't, you'd have been working for him.)

You stare him down until he looks away, a frown on his face. "I won't."

Before he can say anything else to you, you stride out of the room, careful not to let any sort of the same weakness show in your steps. You manage to make it to your office before collapsing into your chair, burying your face in your hands and groaning. A curl of your hair escapes the neat updo you have it in and you sigh, tugging at it.

The intercom on your desk buzzes.

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry Miss Abigail, but there's someone on the line who wants to speak with you, and they're not giving me much information to work with. All they're saying is that you need to talk with them before anything else happens," she takes a deep breath. "And that you would know what that meant."

"...Go ahead and transfer the call, Janice."

It clicks through and you pick up the phone, sliding off your high heels and crossing your legs at the knee as you lean back in your chair. "Hello?"

"Hello." comes a soft voice on the other end. They sound female but you aren't willing to put any sort of faith in your ability to identify things correctly right now. "Your name is Abigail Maxwell, and you have two daughters and you work at Crocker Corp., as a marketing executive, right?"

"...Yes." you confirm, frowning at a spot on the wall. 

Just above where you're looking is a mirror, but you don't want to look into it for fear of what you might see in the reflection. 

"I just needed to tell you that it'll be okay." comes the voice again. "I- I'm sorry I can't do much more than that, you and I have never met before." they swallow, a crinkle of noise that makes you strangely worried for them. "Ask Melanie about Derse when you get the chance. You were always one of mine, but you and I never got to interact, and there are times when I fear for the safety of my Dark Moons."

You swallow nervously, feeling a tingle of something akin to fear hammering it's way up your spine. Trying to form words, finding yourself at a loss for the second time in less than an hour, the line goes quiet, like an inhale before diving into water.

(You were married at eighteen, already eight months pregnant when you stood at the altar. His eyes had glimmered in the light and his smile had been so sweet.)

The person on the other end exhales, a rush of static that somehow sounds less electronic than usual. "You never played the game." they explain something that you still can't comprehend, some sort of thing that takes on a capital letter in their voice. "Ask your daughters when you understand what I'm talking about. If you ask them before, you won't understand the answer, and all it will do is make you confused."

A monumental pause, and then, "And tonight, when you head home, carry a weapon with you."

And then the call is over.

You pull the phone away from your head and stare at it for a moment before you slide it back into it's holder.

The gold colored pointer that Melanie got you is clenched tightly in one hand, knuckles white. Slowly, you release your grip, watch as it rolls across the desk and stops just short of falling off. A prickle of anger makes you shudder as you turn to stare out the window.

If a weapon is needed, you will have one.

 

~

 

Your heels click on the concrete as you walk to your car, hair free of the neat twist it had been in only an hour before.

Blood red lipstick and riotous curls framing your face, you walk with purpose, stabbing each step into the ground as if you can mark your path permanently. Your purse is hanging over your left shoulder, right hand digging into it for your keys. You've exchanged the skirt you wore earlier for a pair of slacks you keep in your desk, and that might have been the best decision because there's a small breeze picking up.

The honk and squeal of traffic is a distant white noise, and you can't help but make a face as a siren roars to life.

Your car is just ahead, a streetlight shining down like a beacon, and you clutch your bag closer as you hear something rustle in the bushes. Whatever is causing the noises sounds too big to be a cat or a raccoon, so you pause in your steps, waiting.

A man steps into view, a neatly pressed green shirt and a shiningly bald head the first and most obvious characteristics.

"You were once promised to him, you know." he tuts, pulling his hand from his pocket and tapping the face of his watch. "And a true Empress never goes back on a deal that was made in all honestly." he hums, then looks at your car, a mockery of disinterest in the situation at hand. "Truthfully, I would just be happy to forget the whole thing, but my employer is rather insistant."

The noise of footsteps behind you makes your spine go stiff.

You know those footsteps, you've heard them so many times before and you memorized the sound so that you could turn the other way before he started yelling at you for something that was his fault in the first place. It has never seemed to matter to him that you're technically his boss, the idiot has always pressed his luck. 

Unfortunately, never in a way that could get him fired.

"Zachariah, what are you doing?" you ask without turning around. The headache is returning, but you can feel something behind it, some vast sort of knowledge that you know is important. "It's late, I want to go home, my daughters are supposed to be coming over tomorrow."

"You," he growls, "Are not going anywhere."

You can hear him move.

He doesn't get the chance to lay a hand on you.

One of the things your husband had bought for you and demanded you keep in your purse for your own safety is a collapsable, police-grade, baton. You pivot on one foot and lunge into the swing with it at the ready, pulled from your bag in less than five seconds. 

The strike connects with his forehead, sending him crashing to the ground.

Instead of sticking around to see what he might do, you dash towards your car, hitting the button to unlock it even as you pull on the door and shortly after throw yourself on the seat, slamming it behind you. Another push of a button locks it back up and you start it up, grinning at the dumbfounded look on Zachariah's face in the mirror as you throw it into reverse.

You peel out of the parking lot before they can attempt to stop you.

The memories come crashing back when you reach home, each moment in time a wound rubbed raw and painful.

Your name is ABIGAIL MAXWELL, but you used to be HER IMPERIAL CONDESCENSION, and you were a horribly power mad being who should have been killed long before you were. You can't make it too much further than the front door, barely remembering to lock it before you collapse against the wall and slide down. 

You've never been one to make friends easily, and you don't know if it's because you're intimidating or because you don't deserve them, but one way or another, you are alone in your house with nothing more than the shadows to keep you company as you try to focus on the good memories. Few and far between, so very few without any sort of deaths in them, and even less where the happiness is caused by being around another. As a Tyrian blood, you understand now, you were driven to kill any who threatened your rule. 

Usually that was only those of the same blood color, but there was an exception to every rule.

He had been dubbed 'The Signless' by those who followed him, and after his death, 'The Sufferer'. He had brought about a ruthless sort of change, a doctrine of love and peace amongst the blood castes.

It twists your insides up to realize that your first instinct had been to have him murdered.

(And wasn't that just the killer? The one move that had practically doomed you was the one that had doomed him. You'd lost two of your most loyal the moment the orders had passed from your lips to their ears.)

You don't know how long you sit there, curled up on the floor of your living room, but by the time you realize that you're not alone anymore, there's sunlight streaming in through the windows. Bird song makes you lift your head, and you guess that it must have happened because they're there, but your daughters are curled up together on the couch, Felicity's head pillowed on her sister's stomach. Melanie's head is tilted straight back, a steady stream of quiet snoring coming from her open mouth. 

(You know who they are now, and you knew who they were before.)

(You will not succumb to the instincts from another life that are shouting at you to murder your children in their sleep.)

Instead, you stand up slowly, brushing yourself off and combing your fingers through your hair in an attempt to untangle. It doesn't work, but it does make you feel a bit better about being stiff and sore after sleeping the night in a spot that wasn't your bed. There's a moment where you look between the kitchen and your bedroom: you choose to head towards the latter.

Once there, you change into your pajamas and robe, sliding aching feet out of high-heeled shoes and into the soft relief of a pair of slippers.

With a gentle sigh, you head back out to the living room, glancing at your sleeping girls once more before heading into the kitchen. You pull out mixing bowls and stirring implements and ingredients and set a pan to heating up and the oven to 'warm'. The act of making pancakes on an early Saturday morning is one you haven't gone through in a long while.

Slow footsteps announce the arrival of at least one of your spawn and you smile as you turn to face her.

Felicity smiles back, rubbing a hand through her hair-

(Small Feferi, who you would have one day challenged for the title of Empress.)

-and pulling her shirt back down over her hips, having slouched enough in her sleep to twist it around. "Hey mom." she yawns halfway through the words, eyes still half crinkled shut. 

You put down the ladle and cross the room to put your arms around her, holding her close like you remember doing when she was a baby, a toddler, only forcing her independence when she turned thirteen and started demanding adult-like treatment. She is nearly thirty but she is your child, your youngest daughter.

"...Mom?"

The confusion in her voice is obvious, and you shake your head before pulling away and struggling against the tears you can feel stinging your eyes. "It's nothing, Felicity. I just-" you take a deep breath, look up at the movement on the edge of your vision and see Melanie. "What was life like for you two? An ancestor who wanted one of you dead, at the very least and an insane plot to try and create a new world..."

Their jaws drop at the exact same moment.

Melanie recovers first, clearing her throat before sighing. "My ancestor didn't want me dead, she was an older version of Fef and she wanted peace for all. Shmoopy and sweet, just like the younger version. Of course, the younger version," she steps forward and nudges her sister. "Was a little scarier because she was raised in a world where you were her ancestor."

Swallowing nervously, Felicity takes hold of your arm. "Mom?" she asks quietly, as if she's unsure of how safe she is near you. "What-" she looks at her sister, then tries again. "What caused you to remember?"

"You two remember Zachariah Fields, yes?" you look at both of them, then make a face when they nod. "He attacked me last night, and someone who appeared with him said something about me being an Empress."

A look of outrage splashes across Melanie's face. "Fucker did what?"

"Wait, did you say Fields?" Felicity asks, frowning. Her mouth pulls into a pout that makes her seem all of fifteen years old again. "Fields..." she pulls her phone out from somewhere you can't even see before she's typing out a text and sending it off. "I think Fields is the last name of the guy who had Eridan and Sollux captive. Y'know," she looks up at Melanie. "He also had Kankri and his father?"

(You pretend that your heart doesn't stop for a minute at that. Relief or fear, it doesn't really matter when you're the one who pretty much held a gun to his head and the heads of his executioners.)

"Am I missing the fact that there seems to be a support group?" you ask as a joke, but the look your daughters exchange is telling. 

Felicity nods. "We've gathered together as many as we can, of those who remember, and we're still missing a few. We don't know where all of them are, but we're working on it." she smiles, holding up her phone. "Meenah and I divided up the duties of finding people. She's looking for her group, I'm looking for mine."

"It might be a little more difficult for you." Melanie frowns, almost always a sour counterpoint to her sister's sweetness. "You were kind of terrifying as a troll, and you kind of..."

"I know." you halt her words, rubbing a hand down your face. "Who have you two found?"

"Well," Felicity scrolls through her phone. "I found Sollux, Eridan, Aradia but only because her sister is Melanie's partner...It might be easier to list who I haven't found, actually." she takes a deep breath, then drops to the floor and curls up so that she doesn't have to stand anymore. "I haven't been able to find Equius Zahhak or Nepeta Leijon. From your time, you would know Darkleer and the Disciple."

"I got a message on Facebook from someone that I suspect is Cronus, which means Dualscar." Melanie drops down next to her sister. "Damara kind of hates her name as a human, just by the way."

"...Damara?" you can feel the confused look on your face as you kneel to be on the same level as them.

"You would know her mother, I think." Melanie's frown grows deeper, more pronounced lines on her face as she stares at a spot on the floor. "We're not sure because Damara can't even tell me what her mom's name is, she hasn't seen her in forever and..." she clears her throat. "Damara woke up in this life and found herself working as a stripper in a seedy club. I guess it was being run by someone who was being really creepy? Anyways, she woke up and she quit and she's been trying to find a place to work ever since, but I think there might be someone keeping her from being hired."

She bites the inside of her bottom lip and you can feel the fear and worry growing inside of you. "Do- Does she and her sister..." you sigh, trying to figure out the right words. "Do they need the money that badly?"

"Yeah, they kind of do." Melanie grumbles, leaning back on her hands. "Her sis is a sweet kid, works as an aid to a guy named Samuel Choi, who turns out to be originally named Sollux. He's blind, and she gets paid to check up on him a couple of times a week. It's not a lot, and she's thought about doing some more work, but Damara is trying to keep her in school and on the path that'll make her happy."

"I will be willing to help pay for their housing, if that would be accepted." you offer, feeling relief when the words come out, knowing that it was the right thing to say.

"There's...Another thing." Felicity cuts in. "Damara and her sister, Aradia, have the other name of Megido. I think you would know-"

"The Handmaid." you finish, blinking a couple of times. "She was forced to work for Lord English, raised for it in fact. I was supposed to take her place." they look at each other for a moment, seeming to come to a silent decision before they nod and look back at you.

"We need to find her." Melanie says quietly. "I think he might have found her again."

Felicity's phone buzzes. "Oh, and I was right about Fields being the last name of the guy who held our friends in captivity. Does Zachariah have a pair of twins for his kids?"

Your heart stutters for a moment as your eyes go wide. 

"Callista and Calaghan." you answer.

The look of absolute dread and terror on your daughters' faces is enough to make your stomach turn like it's going to expel everything you've eaten in the last couple of weeks. Felicity has gone pale, her hands clenched tight enough to shake around her phone, Melanie gripping the end of one of her braids in her hair. 

"It makes it a lot scarier, knowing their names and that you've worked with their dad since we were little." Melanie whispers. "I don't know why, but it does."

You pull both of them close, curling a hand around the backs of their necks and pressing them in until their breath is warm spots against your shoulders. "Here's what we're going to do." you start, pulling back after a few minutes and nodding firmly, just once. "You two are going to call Damara and Aradia- What are their names again? Amanda and- ?"

"Delphinia." Melanie wrinkles her nose. "Like I said, she kind of hates it."

"Anyways, you're going to call them here and we're going to form a stronghold. I know some of how Zachariah operates when he's angry. If he feels at all like he got slighted by someone and he can't actively get revenge on them," you swallow, sighing. "You remember when I got promoted and took you two to an office party, where he cornered you and started screaming?"

Felicity's fear has morphed into an anger that you are so proud of. "He goes after whoever is related to them."

Melanie slings an arm around her sister's shoulders. "Immature fuckhead." 

You stand up and offer them each a hand. "Call them, get them here, I do not want them to be the next names on the list of those who have vanished into his hold." you pause as Felicity nods and wanders into another room to do so, still holding onto your oldest. "When Damara comes over, how insulted would she be if I handed her a couple thousand to help her pay bills?"

"...I'm actually not sure." A grin starts to form on her face as she thinks about it. "More than anything, I think she'd freak out over it being a lot of money and being unable to pay you back."

"She wouldn't have to." you reply, already thinking of another option. "Should I have you offer it? Or just have her move in with you?"

"Why don't we wait until she gets to know you a little better?" Melanie laughs as she pulls out her phone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooh, this is far from over. I might have just figured out a plot point that adds in another several thousand words.


	5. Makara -- Ochoa

The Heretic is the first thing you remember.

You can't even remember a time when you didn't dream of him, dream of candy-apple-red blood and eyes that could have held so much anger but held so much forgiveness instead. The anger of a thousand worlds had filled him inside, but he had been so forgiving in the face of his death, so willing to speak the words that had damned him.

You have to wonder if he remembers how much he changed you.

It's doubtful: His eyes barely stray from the front of the room as the sermon is given, this week's teachings provided by a retired priest who'd moved to town a decade ago. One of many that you'd invited in, asked to speak to the people.

The Signless had changed everything about you, from the very core of your beliefs to the outer edges of your own self. 

His death had weighed heavily on you, meant as a punishment for the two trolls that Her Imperialness had been unable to control. The scorching color of his blood had sprayed across the ground and she had laughed at you when you had seen who was being executed that day. 

But now, now he sits in your church and he sings along with the hymn that is being sung and he looks so soft, like he always has. There is no way that he is not who you think he is, and you've welcomed him to the neighborhood and he had thanked you in that perfectly polite manner of his.

(Polite even when facing down what could have been his death. He had seen you, his hands chained behind his back and his eyes wide, and he had welcomed you into his cell.)

(You had spoken with him until you both were exhausted, the first spots of light coming up over your heads.)

As the weeks had passed, he had started coming into your church more often, his soft face lighting up the first time he had seen the inside. You had greeted him then, too, welcomed him into the speech being given by a local Rabbi.

When he had asked about the place, you had explained it as less of a church and more of a safe space for anyone who needed one.

(You still remember how pleased he had looked when you said that, his eyes lighting up just as much as that first time.)

You remember this danger from the first time you met him, the small troll with the dangerous ideas, the worry of falling so deep into his world that you'd never be able to leave again. His world had collided into yours, tangling so deep that it had never left, not even when he'd been murdered in front of you.

(You still wish you could have run away with his Disciple, the one who heard his last gasping breaths, the one who took what tangible things she could and disappeared into the wilds.)

You love him. 

You don't know if the man who attends your church and the one who changed everything are one and the same, but you love both of them. They're similar, but different at the same time, confusing edges blurring together and making you wish for the simpler times of being something else. The ache in your heart is made worse everytime he smiles at you, a small sign of approval that you would follow his every order and make his every wish come true to get once more.

 

~

 

And then he disappears.

 

~

 

His house lies empty for years, his youngest child moving away to be away from the site of the vanishing of his brother and his father.

Something deep inside of you rebels at the thought, some deep Highblood instinct demanding blood and retribution, the leveling of cities until he is returned to your side. The loss of one man requires repayment in blood, it seems, and your world takes on a rage-induced tint, anger overshadowing your emotional state for a few days until your son had come to you. He was worried, he explained in a mixture of Spanish and hand-motions, and you had seemed upset.

You were upset.

Why?

Because-

You don't know how to explain to your son about the man who has gone missing, the loss so profoundly deep inside of you that it tears at your gut until it feels shredded into nothing.

 _'Is it because of Kankri and the Signless going missing?'_ he asks, his hands going still after the question is finished.

_'Because I can't sleep either. Kankri is gone, and I know it was him, even without his memories catching up to him.'_

And your dreams have never made sense to you up until this point. 

And you sit him down and have him tell you his story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have not updated in what feels like forever because several other fandoms sunk their claws into me and I also started college.
> 
> I am one-third of the way to my AA degree. Yay me.


	6. Captor -- Choi

You have always been fascinated by things in sets.

It should have been surprising when your long-term partner had given birth to a set of twins, should have been odd in how it suited you, but the shock of it was somewhat overshadowed. The babies had been handed to you, you'd been allowed a few minutes of cooing over them with her and then she'd closed her eyes and never woken up again.

Something had gone wrong, her body hadn't been able to handle it, they'd told you a lot of different things but all you could focus on was the fact that she was gone. You felt numb.

You had children.

To you, it felt as if some malignant force had reached through and taken her away. As if by chance she had caught the attention of some distant, angry, malevolent god and he had seen fit to get rid of her. 

(Later you would find out that was almost the truth, but grief has no room for such discoveries.)

Two children, both with your eyes and her features softening out your angular ones. Twins. Two boys. You could hardly believe it, they were so small that it felt dangerous to touch them. They survived on the formula you made for them, and you enlisted the help of your family, but you made due. You named them Samuel and Matthew and you gave them her words of comfort and serenity that you had heard her whisper in the darkness when she had carried them.

You felt as if they were precious, the most precious thing in your life.

Small lives given into your care.

You will protect them with everything you have inside of you.

You are nineteen when you feel as is the world has been handed to you to take care of.

 

~

 

As they grow, you come to find that Samuel and Matthew are special in different ways.

Matthew, full of strange thoughts and stories and occasionally nightmares about off-the-wall concepts, is bright and brilliant and strange. It presents itself slowly, but he uses his three-year-old voice to give babbling speeches about why moons remember. Why the moon would love her children, why her children are all pretty. When the doctor you take them to for a checkup refers you to a specialist, the specialist asks you to consider the idea that Matthew is possibly developmentally disabled.

You gather your boys to your chest, thank the nice lady and then walk out of her office, never to return.

Matthew is not-

There isn't anything wrong with having a child who is disabled, but Matthew doesn't strike you as one of the ones who is. His daycare has a couple of children who are, and you've read all the reports and pamphlets they handed you during the time you were considering the idea. Matthew reads as a little boy with a wild imagination. None of the signs they told you to look for were present in him.

Samuel is a different set of hurdles altogether.

Your second son, born two minutes after your first in what the doctors had called the fastest twin birth they had seen in a long while, was born blind.

It was a moment of terror when you had found out, the flash of thought that said 'He will never be-' before you ruthlessly quashed it. Your son was your son, and the schools for the blind had gone through several advancements. It was likely that Samuel might be able to be in the same classes as his brother as they got older. It would require a different set of tools and a different approach, but he would be just fine.

You would take care of them.

A half-forgotten memory, a dream you lost track of the moment you woke, nags at you. You choose to ignore it. The nightmares you have always had of being chased, of being hunted down and nothing coming easy- Those dreams have not a thing to do with your boys. You will not let your own fears change their lives.

 

~

 

When the boys are sixteen, Matthew graduates high school early and Samuel develops a way of interacting with computers that gain him a scholarship to just about any school he wants to go to.

Both of your sons are brilliant and you will defend them to your dying day.

The dreams have gotten more insistent as if someone is telling you something important only for you to forget it when your eyes open. You've started keeping a dream journal but most of the pages are still blank.

You started writing in it two years ago.

 

~

 

Samuel and Matthew are twenty-two when Samuel's behavior changes.

You can't tell if it's a good change or not because he suddenly acts like telling you anything is dangerous. Both of them still live with you for the sake of convenience, Matthew because he needs a place to sleep and renting out an apartment with his current job hours and school activities makes no sense.

Samuel insists on moving out a month after their birthday.

"I jutht need thome time alone," he says quietly, his hands gripping his cane tightly. "I need my own thpace."

His shoulders are hunched around his neck, his usual sign of not telling you something. You won't press it, you just help him find a place that doesn't feel too small to him and you give him a late birthday gift of paying for the first two months of rent. He hugs you when he moves in but the movement is still and odd like he's not sure how to.  
Something is happening to your son and the only thing you can do is settle in and wait for him to tell you.

You can wait.

 

~

 

Matthew and Samuel are twenty-four when Matthew's behavior changes too.

What strikes you as odd is that it changes in the same way. Where Samuel paused and thought over his words is where Matthew does the same. They are sharing the same secret and it does not surprise you one bit. They are twins, they are brothers, Samuel has always been somewhat reserved. Matthew is the open book, the one who seems easy enough to read until you get too close.

You are proud of them and glad they are happy but it still hurts to be shut out like this.

 

~

 

Your own birthday, your forty-fourth, is spent at home.

The boys have made plans to come see you later, promising to take you out to dinner and you really have to wonder if forty-four is too young for a mid-life crisis. It's not like you're feeling abandoned, more that you feel set adrift. It has been two months since Matthew stopped really talking to you. Both of your sons are doing well, alive and living their own lives. Matthew still lives with you, but his little start-up business is doing so well and he's doing wonderfully when it comes to everything.

But you just feel...

Adrift.

For the first time in a long while, you are not responsible for the small people you created. They would still like you around, you think, but if you were to die they would be alright. Maybe sad but alright. Your life has been twenty-four years of watching over them and making sure that Matthew actually eats and that Samuel actually sleeps. 

You'd like to think that their mother would be proud of them.

A soft knock on the door draws you away from your thoughts and you get up slowly. Something is feeling static in your mind, a buzzing sensation like the bees that fly through your garden in the summer. Before you open the door, the knock comes again, leaving you to frown when it opens. It isn't late but you were not expecting company other than your children.

On the other side is a young woman with what seems to be a fashionably dyed updo and a knee length dress over a pair of sandals you vaguely remember seeing somewhere. 

"Haneul Choi?"

Her voice is oddly familiar and you can only nod for a moment before your tongue unsticks from the roof of your mouth. For some reason, all you can think of is the stories Matthew used to tell when he was a toddler.

The Moon who loved her children.

It's a silly thought and you manage to smile somewhat awkwardly. "Yeth, that ith me."

You have had plenty of time to grow used to the lisp. You once offered Samuel and Matthew speech therapy if they wanted to get rid of theirs but they had declined.

"Good," she says, her eyes practically lighting up as she bounces on her toes. "I'm- Well, I'm a bit hard to describe in easy, simple sentences, but there are things that need to be said and I don't know how much time I get to say them before something drags me away again, so I suppose I should just start?"

Her words fall out of her mouth in flurries, as if there is a storm somewhere inside of her that can't be contained and you just want her to feel safe. There is no reason for it, no evidence or logic, but you get the feeling that she hasn't been safe or still for a very long time.

Her eyes are an almost-purple sort of blue and you can only stare back when she meets yours with them. "Have you been having dreams?"

(Images of a dying man,)

"Or maybe- Maybe visions?"

(His blood is a bright red and it spills on the ground as you are taken away, dragged away screaming. He is not dead in this moment and you find yourself almost wishing you were.)

"You're harder to get a reading on, like there's something not quite-" her fingers come up and press against your cheek, turning your face this way and that. "- there's something different, something missing. Most of the ones I have found want to remember, and I know why you wouldn't but it's a necessary thing right now Haneul."

(They took him away with his hands bound behind him as if they weren't strong enough to simply reach out and break his neck with one sharp twist from one large hand.)

(The inside of her ship smelled like a death that you were not allowed to reach for.)

(You spent what felt like millions of centuries in there.)

(You were not allowed your peace.)

When your eyes open again she has you settled on your front steps and you have a feeling that something like this has happened before.

"Yes," she says, kneeling on the stone in front of you. "It has. Cronus didn't react so well to his memories being returned to him. Water dwellers aren't supposed to be in danger of drowning, but when their systems shut down because they are panicking..." she shrugs, her face ageless but she looks so old for one so young.

If you didn't know better by now, you would have said she was younger than your children.

"Goddethth," you manage to say quietly. "We prayed to you when we were running."

"I know," her eyes are tearing up and her breathing is coming fast and she seems like she is about to fall apart. "I know and I wish there had been something I could do but I could not step in."

Her hair isn't dyed.

The Mother Goddess of the Dreaming Moon.

The Moon who loved her Children.

"Matthew knew," you laugh quietly as it occurs to you. "Matthew knew. The memorieth made it through before he wath old enough to have them, but only in thhort fitth and burthtth." you laugh again, feeling almost brittle as you do. "When did he remember?"

"A few months ago."

You knew what she was going to say before she said it, you did. You really did. "And what part doeth Thamuel play in all of this? Two younger verthionth of me did not exitht, I know that."

"Samuel was Sollux, a younger generation that played your part in things for when Matthew was Mituna." 

She brushes her hair out of her face, looks ready to throw herself at your feet and sob for mercy and you have never liked the idea that you or anyone else would ever become like Her Imperial Condescension. When you reach for her, take her wrist in your hands and smile, she looks startled. 

"Thank you for looking out for them."

The sunset is a mixture of Her colors and you are filled with something you haven't felt since running into a highblood in a bar and managing to kiss him before fleeing into the night with the bag of coin he'd pressed into your hands.

You will take this duty once more, the rallying of the people who need to be gathered and you will find those who were once and hopefully always loyal to His cause. Things are different now, there is a peace to be found.

You will help them find it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello Psiioniic, how're you doing today? 
> 
> Not really obvious but the weirdness in his head is because Sollux and Mituna's Lusii were biclops. The two heads confused things a little when they were smooshed together.


	7. Maryam -- Nassar

When you wake, your memories are stable.

There is no difference, no slow remembrance, just a sudden moment of 'Now' and 'Before'. The other side of your bed is warmed by the body of a wild-haired woman you remember in two different ways. Her hair is splayed across the pillows, fine golden strands turning almost to holy fire in the rising sun. You wake with the dawn, you always have, and you remember when that saved your life. On the run from the Empress, protecting the troll you had claimed as your child before his life could be lost in the brooding caverns.

The sunlight had saved you until you had outrun it.

Something tells you before you can ask, whispers to you, brings the truth to you in a startling revelation. Yes, it sings in your mind, yes she does remember. 

Her dark nail polish is another part of her armor, something she rarely goes without. Her eyes are smudged with dark makeup as well, her collapse into an exhausted sleep the night before leaving little time for the removal of it. 

She feels your eyes - She must, for she wakes - and opens her own slowly. "'Metria," she grumbles, scratching idly at her stomach. "The hell you lookin' at this early?"

"You," your voice acts without a thought from your mind. "In all of your light-touched glory. You never did like mornings, my love. Not now and certainly not as Mindfang. You were always the most difficult to wake when it was time."

"What," Adradrianna sits up, her eyes wide and mismatched. One is precisely the same blue as her daughters', the other a milk-tinted shade. She is somewhat blind in one eye, the same as she always has been. "Wait, 'Metria, what're you-"

She fumbles for her glasses, jams them onto her nose and peers at you from behind them. 

Like her daughters', she needs correction to her vision as well.

You assume that they needed them as Trolls the same way she did. You assume they're nearly the same as they were before. Your assumptions will, in time, likely prove to be correct. Despite the separation and the torture you endured and the death at the hands of her kismesis, you always did know her best. "Your daughter is dating mine, precious younger versions of our own romance."

"Holy shit," Adradrianna breathes the words out, reaches for your cheek, pulls back when her nails touch your skin. "Dolorosa."

"Yes," you whisper, leaning forward until her skin is pressed to yours. "Mindfang."

She drags you to her, seals her mouth against yours. When she pulls back to breathe, to let you breathe, her eyes are bright. "I didn't even know! You were lovely and beautiful and smart and snarky in a way that seemed to match with mine, I thought you were amazing and a great catch, didn't even- Never expected to see you again."

"I am here," you whisper, your own nails digging into her arms in a way that cannot be comfortable. "I am _here_ and I am _with you_ , my love, I missed you _so much._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's been a while, but here's another chapter of this insanely long series.
> 
> ....I hope you enjoyed it.


	8. Megido -- Powell

If ever your story is told, you would be foolish to think that it would be as anything other than a cautionary tale.

A story of folly, of a young girl who had been stupid enough to think herself in love with a man thirteen years her senior. Your story was the work of whatever forces had landed you in your situation, and if you could have a word with them, you would. You remember being powerful, stuck in servitude but able to fight back in small ways.

You have your memories, and you're not sure anymore when you got them back.

You'd like to think that there is something more to you than just a pawn in Lord English's plans, but that never seems to be the case. 

At least he has left your daughters alone.

You pray they never meet their father.

 

~

 

Commotion above you catches your attention before one of the stupid men who work for him comes barging in and latches a hand around your arm.

He doesn't need to aim a weapon at you: you paid for the safety of your girls with the loss of your resistance. You follow quietly, unsure of how to speak anymore, eyes wide as you realize that the building smells like smoke and death. The man who drags you pauses just long enough to toss you into the back of a truck, gives you just enough time to see a woman with blue hair chaining a white haired male to a post.

Something inside of your chest lifts it's head, some nearly forgotten thread of anger and willpower that you wish to nurture like a wounded bird.

(You've never known the name of the purple moon that you dream about.)

 

~

 

Lord English rants for several hours, occasionally throwing something at the wall and snarling as it shatters.

Four of the people he kept in cells are freed.

The fluttering hope that lies, resurrecting itself, between your ribs grows stronger with every curse he utters. The memory of the blue haired woman helps, some days.

"-And my son was nearly thrown in prison because of those thoughtless morons!"

You only stare up at him, words rusty with disuse as you think that the little shit deserves it for what he has done in the time since you birthed him.

 

~

 

The day comes when the building falls into silence and then chaos.

A thickly built man comes slamming into the room, knocking down the locked door and heaving a snarled sigh of relief when it comes down. When he catches sight of you, the scars around his mouth crinkle as he offers you his hand.

"I must apologize," he says with a Spanish accent that makes you smile. "My name is Aitor Ochoa, and all I ever knew you as was the Handmaid."

You slip your hand into his, marvelling at the size difference for a moment. You look like a child next to him. The words come slowly, like cold glue on a day made of ice, and you have to try a couple of times before they form correctly. "My name," the words grate against your throat, tearing at the skin. "Is Daniella Powell."

Aitor nods and offers his arms. "It might go faster if I carry you out of here."

You notice the badge on his clothing and nod slowly. "Yes." is all you can manage before falling victim to a coughing fit.

 

~

 

You haven't seen your daughters since your oldest was thirteen and your youngest was six, but you recognize them the moment they step into your view.

Their names are not the ones their father gave them, but the youngest of the three seems pleased with what she recieved. Callista stands off to the side, the only one of them to have been raised by their father, and watches with a smile on her face.

(Her brother was taken away in the back of an ambulance, a couple of bullets being dug out of his leg as he went.)

Your oldest studies you, raises her chin so that she can watch you.

Your youngest races past her and throws her arms around you. 

Behind them stands a group of people, several of them watching you with worry in their eyes. One of them is a woman, her hair dark and curled around her face as she holds herself as regally as any queen and you know who she is without being told. You've always known who she is, and standing beside her are two girls who look a stunning amount like her. One of them is watching your oldest, hands locked together in a worried twist.

The other is smiling at you, her eyes bright and her hand clutched in her mother's.

The older-

(They are not children but they defer to her because she is their Empress.)

-hesitates but steps closer, her hands untangling when she gets closer to your oldest, twining with hers and they both smile when it happens. There is a sort of peace there, as if they were always meant to be in synch and next to each other.

"This is Melanie Maxwell." your daughter says quietly. "Her sister is Felicity and her mother is Abigail. Once upon a time," she swallows, forces her nerves to stop going tight with the fear you can see in her eyes. "Once upon a time, Abigail Maxwell was the Condesce, Empress of our species and a terrifying person to behold."

"I was the younger version of her from when a timeline was restarted and changed." Melanie adds in, one hand partially in the air. "If you remember, then we're only waiting on one more person, and he is slow about coming to."

Abigail walks over, leaving her other daughter to throw her arms around two of the young men who come closer to her. 

"Do you remember?" she asks you quietly.

You look up at her, trace the shape of her lips with your gaze, remember for a moment the shape of her as a troll and how high her horns extended. You remember Lord English trying to switch you out for her, a deal the both of you made before Scratch had forced you to forget it. 

You remember how lonely she got when she was the only one left.

"I do." you hold out your hands to her, still holding onto your daughter. "I remember everything."

She smiles and steps closer, considers Aradia for a moment before curling the both of you in a tight hug, laughing at the small squeak of surprise that your daughter lets out. "I am- If the three of you are so inclined, I have space in my home for- I..." she trails off and it occurs to you that this is the most insecure and unsure version of her that you have ever seen.

(And you saw her fight her predecessor to the death when she was little more than a wiggler.)

"I have a place for you, if you need it." is what she settles on. "Your daughters live one town over, and I don't know if they want to move or not, but I have room for those who need it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have kept this chapter in my files for literal ages now because I wanted The Handmaid to be the last piece of this part in the story. I got impatient and also I have not been the best updater lately between school and work and everything going chaotic in my face. I've also joined a whole bunch of fandoms and written large amounts for them as well.
> 
> I hope you all have enjoyed this series thus far.


	9. Leijon -- Lewis

The first thing you remember when you Wake Up is the fear that plagued you until the day you died.

You were afraid of what would happen to his story, to your friends (The few that remained), to his faith, his followers, to yourself. You were afraid of almost everything. Your friends were gone, the Empress had all but seen to their destruction. The life you led before was gone, the person you had been destroyed in the wake of a new point of view. His followers were scattered for their own safety, as much of it as could be found in Her regime.

Your own life barely mattered anymore, by the time you had died. 

All that had mattered were the images you drew, the stories you'd told. The people who gathered and kept his hope alive, his ideas and love for everyone.

You step back from the canvas and drop your paintbrush into the container of water. 

A bead of sweat rolls down your forehead and you use the back of your hand to wipe it away. Painted in great detail, from a combination of memories and stories, is the final battle of Neophyte Redglare. Her opponent, you'd heard, was the pirate Mindfang. She'd used her powers to turn the crowd into a weapon, had brought about a hanging for the Justice.

You'd always thought it'd been a pity.

The stories had spoken of her intelligence, her dedication to her cause. They had mentioned, in whispers and secrets and the darkness that meant safety, that she had sympathized with Him. Some swore that she wore his mark somewhere, a hidden member of his followers.

In those same whispers, you'd heard the story of the Highblood's madness. 

Following His death, the Highblood was said to have become worse than before. His honking laughter could be heard with every execution and he had apparently gone running through more than one battlefield while laughing. Her armies even feared him again, they said. 

It rankled a bit, to hear that His death was part of a punishment for a once-loyal being forced into loyalty again.

You sigh and look at the other paintings hanging up to dry. You're working in acrylic today, the best thing to allow you no time to think about your brush strokes. The work is softer around the edges, the shimmering gold paint you used to detail in the rising light of the sun on the dragon's wings as it rose behind Redglare catching your eye once more.

You wish you could have met her.

Your memories are twisted around every story you ever heard, every moment of the loss you recorded for future generations.

Your entire studio is filled with paintings. You are, as ever, the historian, the storyteller. You are the one who survives to pass on the knowledge and tell others of things that have passed. You alone are the one who carried his words to safety, told them of his new sign, the Signless no more, he was given a sign the moment they killed him, you'd whispered back. The sign of his death, of his torture and his angry forgiveness as they'd drained the blood from his body.

Somehow, as you look at your paintings, you realize that there are others. 

Others who remember. 

You are not the lone storyteller anymore. There are those who help you tell the story, and you need to find them before anything happens to them. 

You look over your shoulder at your computer, still quietly playing music that you'd barely heard until now. When you work, it is a helpful thing to have, something to keep your mind off the outside world and simply on the paints.

Now it feels like a call to action.

You settle your hands on the keys and start navigating until you find the right sort of place online. 

You have one more story to tell those who would listen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello Disciple, I was actually able to figure out how to write you! Welcome to the party.


	10. Serket -- Sussner

 

Your awareness first comes as dreams.

The dreams first come when you hold your youngest in your arms. Sweaty, exhausted, more than a little bit in pain, you reach out for her as they wipe her off. She is a squalling, screaming, tiny thing, but you love her the moment she is in your arms. You just spent nine months carrying her.

She looks just like you.

Acts just like you, too. Demanding little one, you smile as they put her in a crib and wheel her away to be fully cleaned and weighed and everything. She came late at night, nearly one in the morning. Ananda comes into the room an hour later, her eyes dark-rimmed, and you wince.

“Hey little bug,” you smile at her, reaching out to put a hand on her cheek. There is something in her eyes, something that makes a memory you can’t quite focus on twitch in the back of your mind. “Everything alright?” you wince as you try to sit up a little. Ananda reaches out and picks up the remote to the bed, helping you sit upright with the adjustment of buttons.

“I just had a nightmare…” she mutters. “And I woke up and the nanny told me that you were in the hospital.”

The thing is, you were never good with emotions. Your own scare you sometimes and affection is still something you are working on. Your daughter, your firstborn, your wonderful Ananda, named for your hopes and wants, has done wonders for you in that way. “I’m alright, little bug. See?” you hold out your right hand for her to take and she holds it in both of her much smaller ones.

With a nod, she leans forward and perches on the edge of your bed, her head on your shoulder. “What’re you going to name her?”

“I was thinking Vanessa,” you say softly, carding a hand through her hair. “What do you think? Ananda and Vanessa, sisters and maybe partners in crime?” you look down at her. “Because that’s important,” you tell her. “That you two get along. Watch out for each other, alright?”

Ananda nods, already yawning again, her eyes slipping closed. “Watch out for Vanessa,” she murmurs, her eyes tightly closed and small snores coming from her.

You smile and follow her into sleep.

That night, you dream of dancing with a woman whose face you cannot see. She smells of vanilla and lilies, her skin smooth when she presses closer to you. She whispers to you, stories of running through the daytime and being afraid. She tells you of knowing that there is a better future somewhere – Won’t you help make it happen?

You wake up with tears in your eyes and both of your children in the room. Ananda is attending to Vanessa, cooing quietly at her.

 

~

 

The dreams continue.

Most every night, even as you get involved in businesses and traveling. Your daughters grow older, grow up with each other as company. You are not home as often as you would like to be. Four nights out of every seven is not enough for you, your daughters are everything.

Vanessa is two and Ananda is fourteen when you meet the people who will change your lives forever.

The Nassar family.

Two daughters and a single mother. Demetria Nassar is a widow and her children share the same lovely features she has, which you only notice when you walk Ananda up to meet her date. Elaheh is sweet and kind, a perfect counterbalance to how your eldest can sometimes act.

Demetria herself is…

Beautiful.

Her youngest is four years older than Vanessa, which means that the timeline of her family is roughly the same as the timeline of yours. Where you had gone with a sperm donor, the same one twice, she’d had a husband. The man had gotten sick somehow, you found out once you sent the girls on their date. He had passed away when Laleh was three, too young to understand why her father was suddenly gone.

Depending on who was asked, Demetria had followed her brother-in-law to the states or he had followed her.

They had always known that they shouldn’t split the family apart. Laleh and Elaheh and Kivanc and Kadri had grown up close knit, speaking the same mixture of three languages, and the family had needed each other. Kerim had taken his two boys with him after the death of their mother. She had passed shortly after Demetria’s husband had and the man had lost a brother and a wife in the same year.

It made your heart ache.

Demetria, kind and beautiful Demetria, who always greeted tiny Vanessa with such happiness whenever she saw her, was in pain. She wore it quietly, hid it well under her smiles, but she was hurting and you wanted to be there for her.

So you were.

Even as you felt yourself falling in love with her, you kept being there for her. It was a reversal of personality and you found yourself not caring. Demetria needed a friend and so you would be her friend.

 

~

 

The dreams continued.

 

~

 

You were fifty when your mind settled fully into place.

A decade and a half of the dreams and everything had finally just…Settled. You remembered being a troll, one of the nastiest, and you remembered the scent of the sea as it rolled around your ship.

You remembered the injuries that echoed through your lifetime even now.

The blind eye and the ruined arm, the headaches…The constant pain of everything that had been done to you.

Three years into a relationship with Demetria and you wanted to scream to anyone who would listen. The goddesses especially, but you would settle for anyone who might be listening. Demetria, lovely, kind, beautiful Demetria, you were certain that she had been your matesprit-possible before. You remembered things you shouldn’t remember, moments you knew were out of place.

Being a monster and raising a child, even a troll child, to live in fear of you.

Vriska.

“Oh,” you clutched at your chest, your head, trying to breathe. “Little spiderbite, what did I do to you?”

Once you found those you had known back then, you were certain that there were many apologies you needed to say. To those you had wronged, those you had led to their deaths.

Those you had practically murdered with your own hands.

A new life, a human one, was not about anything other than redemption and apologies for you. Those you had wronged needed to hear the words from you. Your daughters had grown up with you only sometimes there and apologizing to them was the first step.

Your dreams were still filled with the scent of lilies and vanilla.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clarifications: 
> 
> Vanessa didn't recognize Demetria when she met her as an adult. This is because Demetria and Adradrianna had agreed to keep things quiet and that meant not bringing Demetria into the Sussner house until they were sure the relationship was going to work.
> 
> The donor, Ananda and Vanessa's 'Father', is Cuauhtemoc Olin. As in the Summoner. 
> 
> Adradrianna, like her daughters, is a mess. She doesn't know what the hell she's doing, she just pretends to be cool, calm and collected. Vanessa thinks she is terrifying because Adradrianna doesn't know quite how to show affection and thus comes across as distant and cold. 
> 
> Think of how canon Vriska was and you'll come close to how Adradrianna is.  
> (Makes sense, considering that the parents are a combination of all versions of the ancestors for a family, along with the Lusii.)
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter!


	11. Pyrope -- Marino

 

There’s something of a drain of innocence in your family.

Your daughters, strong and stubborn and independent and wonderful, are adults. This does not stop you from feeling like something took their childhoods from them far too early. Tanya watched her little sister fall apart, blind eyes and a broken arm, her collarbone shattered from the accident that killed their father.

And you were the one watching Teresa turn her focus towards being just like you.

Tanya stood in for the pain, the misery, and the anger that Teresa threw at anyone who dared to pity her. You were the one there when she needed advice on how to become as successful as she could.

Like two separate versions of you, each dealing with a different aspect of your youngest.

The nightmares were the first clue.

You remembered him first, the sign he left behind after his death, the sign adopted by those carrying his message to the others. You had walked a line, the only line you could walk and feel good about the justice you dispensed. You had been the one to hide his symbol under your clothes, wore a necklace with the symbol given to him upon his death.

It had killed him.

The Highbloods had laughed and jeered and told lies about him until their tongues were merely wagging and you, clever you, had listened with a carefully blank face. You had sentenced their criminals and you had helped them wage a war against those who fought against Her control, all the while sneaking ever closer to put your noose around their necks. The Highbloods deserved your judgment, you remembered that first.

You and your daughters were the ones who were supposed to judge and serve justice.

You remembered that before they did.

You were the combination of the four: Ancestor of both, Lusus of both. You were their mother, the only parents they had ever had as trolls. These were your children, your students, the ones who followed in your footsteps. Your memories were back first.

Unfortunately, that left only one answer, one possible route for you to take.

You stood back, waiting for them to remember on their own. You took _his_ way of things, followed the peaceful method of waiting and letting things happen on their own. You remembered at fifty-five years old. You could only hope that your daughters remembered before then, for the sake of the ones they loved and had been loved by.

 

~

 

And then there was that gallery exhibition.

The colors were soft and perfect, the lighting highlighting the shine and shimmer of each canvas. The stories they told were hazy at the edges but they were sharp and strong in the middle. Like memories, old ones, given form. The artist was a woman named Victoria Lewis.

She had been at the exhibition and your breath had caught in your throat when you saw her.

With her hair in a gently-tamed mane of curls and bushiness, her green eyes sparkling and bright in the lights, you could feel yourself turning red. She was beautiful, like the paintings she had produced, a faint line of paint under her nails. That was what had made this set of works special. She had used her fingers as her only paintbrushes and the critics were wandering the gallery and raving about her skill at it. How she got such detail and sharp edges with such a strange set of tools.

You had watched her move, the roll of her hips and the fact that she wore sensible shoes with no heels and you had _wanted._

She felt familiar, somehow, and you let your gaze trail away from her as you thought about it.

You turned a corner and there was another set of paintings, depicting something you had to focus to make out at first. When you realized what it was, you nearly dropped your glass of champagne. The three-panels-of-canvas setup showed off a brilliantly white dragon, curled around a lone figure on a hill, one hand clasped to their chest, looking to another figure in the distance. The figure in the distance was done in shades of red, carrying a strange sense of power despite a small stature.

“I call it, ‘ _Triumph of Justice and Hope’_ and it is one of my favorites,” came a voice from behind you. “The figure on the hill is meant to be one passing a message through the ages.”

“Tell me,” you answered without turning. “Is the message the one being spread by the figure in red?”

“Oh yes,” she was grinning when you turned to meet her eyes. The green was brighter when she stood in front of you, her nails sharp and unpolished. “I would even say that the effects of the message were felt through the ages and possibly even dimensions. The figure on the shorter hill was someone close to the ones that the message-bringer was trying to change the hearts of.”

“Too bad it took blood to spread his message,” you found yourself answering. Even without confirmation, you knew who she must have been. The Storyteller, the Disciple, the one who was there for his execution.

She was the reason you knew of him in the first place.

With an almost purring-laugh, she held out one of her hands. “Victoria Lewis,” she tossed her hair over her shoulder gracefully.

“Nekane Marino,” you told her, taking it and letting the touch linger. “Disciple.”

“Neophyte.”

You both grinned and that was it for you. She was clever and beautiful and you knew who she was and she knew who you were. The story continued, even as the pieces moved back into their places. “If we are here,” you lowered your voice. “Have you found any of the others?”

“I believe so,” her voice lowered as well and she looked over her shoulder. “I suspect there is another of our numbers in attendance tonight.”

“Oh?”

There was a glimmer of something almost dangerous in her eyes for a moment and she turned completely around, waiting for something before gesturing someone else over. “This,” she told you as a large man with scars on his face walked up to meet the both of you. “Is someone you might know. Aitor Ochoa, this is Nekane Marino.”

The man’s eyebrow raised and he held out his own hand. You took it, shaking it firmly. He was nearly a head-and-a-half taller than you, likely able to heft you about in one hand, and you knew who he must be. “Wonderful to see you again.”

“Likewise,” he said quietly.

 

You found out about their children that night, as they found out about yours.

 

The first child to remember was Victoria’s youngest, after you had been dating for a year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hehehe...Two updates in less than twenty-four hours. School is out for the summer quarter for me.


	12. Zahhak -- Carlyle

Your sons are your most precious belongings in the world.

They are their own people and cannot be belongings, they do not belong to any one person but themselves, but the statement holds true nonetheless. If your career ended tomorrow, permanently and devastatingly, it would be alright as long as your sons were safe.

Raised partially in Britain, Indian descent, their heritage worn proudly in the shade of their skin and the black of their hair.

You had moved to America when their mother had threatened to leave. She had wanted more out of life than the same little town she had been born and raised in. You could not fault her for that – After all, she seemed meant for so much more. A bigger destiny waited for her.

Truthfully, you weren’t even surprised when she did finally leave you.

It had been a long time coming and as much as you had loved her, you were not the one meant for her. She loved your children, sent them gifts and cards and letters, but she left them with you. You work as an engineer, busy and near-insane with deadlines at times, but you would give up your hands to make time and space for your boys if you had to.

They are important.

To you, certainly. They are the ones you have left, the ones you can bring yourself to keep loving. You can leave no room in your heart for any others, not after she left.

But they are important to the world, to the future.

You can sense it, somehow. They are precarious children, cautious and adventurous all at once. Harris is your oldest, not so much a child anymore, taking after you with a knack for engineering and building. Eachann is much the same, building small mechanicals out of spare parts you let him play with. They are both yours, through and through.

Isabèal, their mother, only showed through in the loose curls that grew around their shoulders and in the blue eyes they both had.

You put down your tools and cover your eyes.

Your thoughts have been getting twisted lately, thinking of fates and destinies. You worry about your sons. Your youngest is only ten, still a child. Eachann has been retreating lately, and when he is asked he talks of nightmares. Harris has already retreated, moved out on his own. He lives not too far away, with a young man he has not admitted to you is his boyfriend but you know the truth.

You will let him tell you in his own time.

But Eachann worries you.

Your own dreams worry you.

You remember blood and screaming from them, the scent of death following you as you travel through the world. There are some things that cannot be scrubbed from your skin, no matter how many lakes and streams you visit in your dreams.

The rainbow of blood on your hands – That never goes away. It stays and stains, fills your chest with a Void.

Surrounded by the Void, keeping the very center of you warm and safe, are your sons. You keep the Void from touching them and they keep it from entering the very heart of you. You remember them in different situations, still such scared children. You remember them as impossibly inhuman looking creatures that are still the same children you worry over.

Harris may be twenty-one, but he will always be your child.

The clocks ticks to midnight and you close your eyes, letting your drafting pencil land on the desk from a loose hand.

As if you had summoned them, your dreams spill into your awake mind.

They are not simply dreams.

Your children follow in your path, no matter which life they live, and you wish you could always warn them off of it. You were a lusus and you were an ancestor and you wish with every ounce of your being that you could wrap around your children and keep them safe from the wars you remember.

You were once Darkleer.

The Void has always been inside of you, pounding away at you until nothing remained. You control aspects of it and it controls most of you. It has always slipped into your heart and used you as a puppet for its machinations.

This time, your heart is too well protected.

It cannot simply slip in.

But you must allow it some control if your memories are to be believed. There are dark times ahead.

Sometimes, the only way to fight the dark is to learn from it.

The Goddesses have been missing since your time, the legends all mentioning them disappearing. One God had risen up in the absence and it had always felt wrong. From there, you remember the game session. As a lusus, both times, you had been forced to give up your life for the game to gain energy and take the children into it.

You had been nothing more than a spectator, bodiless and lost, unable to do anything but watch.

You will not let the same thing happen.

You are Daman Carlyle and you will be damned once more if you let them wander into any sort of battle alone again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And. We. Are. Done. With. This. Part.
> 
> Holy shit.
> 
> The adults proved to be some of the hardest people to write. They are and are not the same as the others, all at once. They are the ancestors and the Lusii combined into one person-bundle. Zahhak, especially...What is it about the entire Zahhak family group that I find so difficult to write? 
> 
> Maybe the emotional restraint and just straight-up distancing they do? Like...Yikes, you guys. I know you're Void players, but holy shit.
> 
> Maybe that's it? They're all Void players and I associate it with depression and so I don't like going there?
> 
> Anyway.
> 
> Here's the last chapter of the adults. There is only a few more parts and then this series is coming to a close. I hope you guys enjoyed the ride so far -- We've still got some twists and turns to take.

**Author's Note:**

> You had to know it was coming.
> 
> Well, this is the first part of the adults, the ones who were never in the game.


End file.
